Z Blurbs

Rising anger with Turkey drives calls for reunification in crisis-hit northern Cyprus | Cyprus

From www.theguardian.com
2022-01-09 10:00:00

Excerpt:

In his sun-filled office in north Nicosia, Şener Elcil is plotting his next protest. Anger, he says, is in the air in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus.

The economy is in freefall, thanks to the self-declared republic’s financial and political dependence on Turkey. Thousands have taken to the streets, spurred by inflation rates that have left many struggling to make ends meet; ahead of parliamentary polls later this month, calls for a boycott are mounting, while a blacklist of Turkish Cypriot dissidents, reportedly drawn up at the behest of Ankara, has spawned consternation and fear.

“Turkey is our biggest problem,” says Elcil, who heads the Turkish Cypriot teachers’ union and is a vocal proponent of reunification of the war-divided island under a federal umbrella with the Greek-run south. “It should keep its hands off Cyprus and take its lira and go away.”

 

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Iran Navy Port Emerges as Key to Alleged Weapons Smuggling to Yemen, U.N. Report Says

From www.wsj.com
2022-01-09 11:51:00

Excerpt:

 

Thousands of rocket launchers, machine guns, sniper rifles and other weapons seized in the Arabian Sea by the U.S. Navy in recent months likely originated from a single port in Iran, according to a confidential United Nations report that provides some of the most detailed evidence that Tehran is exporting arms to Yemen and elsewhere.

The draft report prepared by a U.N. Security Council panel of experts on Yemen said small wooden boats and overland transport were used in attempts to smuggle weapons made in Russia, China and Iran along routes to Yemen that the U.S. has tried for years to shut down. The boats left from the Iranian port of Jask on the Sea of Oman, the U.N. report said, citing interviews with the boat’s Yemeni crews and data from navigational instruments found on board.

Iran has diplomatically supported the Houthis in their conflict in Yemen and abroad against targets in Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea, but has long denied providing the group with arms….

 

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Electricity Law brings Israel’s institutions to the brink of collapse – The Jerusalem Post

From www.jpost.com
2022-01-09 19:10:00

Excerpt:

The legislative process was one of the most brutal, nondemocratic, politicized processes in Knesset history and the consequences for the State of Israel will be irrevocable…..

What does this new law do that the old law didn’t? Even before Ra’am used its political leverage to pass this law, infrastructure hookups could be expedited for neighborhoods or individual structures that lacked permits but which the government actively sought to regulate or legalize.

The new law takes what was an exception and makes it the rule. It takes a clause that was applicable to select outlier cases and applies it in wholesale fashion and virtually indiscriminately. How indiscriminately? No one – not even the members of Knesset who voted for it – actually knows, and that’s part of the problem…..

The legislative process was one of the most brutal, nondemocratic, politicized processes in Knesset history – and like other highly questionable pieces of legislation in the recent and not-so-recent past, the consequences for the State of Israel will be irrevocable.

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Dramatic video captures cliff collapsing on tourist boats, killing 10 in Brazil

From www.cbsnews.com
2022-01-09 20:49:35

Excerpt:

 

Ten people died when a cliff collapsed onto tourist boats on a lake in Brazil, officials said Sunday after the bodies of two missing people were found. On Saturday a large rock fragment broke free of a ravine and plunged onto four boats in Furnas Lake in Brazil’s eastern Minas Gerais state, as panicked tourists watched helplessly from other vessels.

Dramatic videos shared on social networks captured the moment the cliff collapsed.

URGENTE

Rocha desaba sobre banhistas em #EscarpasdoLago (MG)
Confira: https://t.co/xPnulAgs0E #R7Minas pic.twitter.com/zZukQA1cww

— Record TV Minas (@recordtvminas) January 8, 2022

The bodies of the two remaining missing individuals were found Sunday by rescuers, civil police commissioner Marcos de Souza Pimenta told reporters.

More than 30 people were injured, including nine who had to be hospitalized, authorities said.

 

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